Smart Moves Every Growing Business Should Make

Rapid business growth delivers both opportunities and chaos if not managed thoughtfully. More customers, employees, revenue and market share strain existing systems built for smaller scale. As expansion accelerates, what moves should growing enterprises make to transform rather than become victims of their own victories?

Updating Operational Infrastructure

Evaluate whether staffing, software systems and equipment meet rising demands. Prioritize adding staff to high-impact areas such as sales, engineering, and customer service to ensure high-quality interactions. Assess if accounting, CRM and inventory management systems provide reporting and insights required for executive decisions at greater volumes. Eliminate productivity lags from underpowered technology with upgrades or completely new solutions, and resize physical infrastructure like office spaces, warehouses, and manufacturing facilities ahead of overflowing. Scale intelligently to fulfill increasing obligations to customers and employees.

Installing Specialized Management

In a startup’s early days, founders and early employees excel by being resourceful and handling multiple roles. Expanding enterprises eventually require experienced managers overseeing finances, sales, inventory, compliance and more. Recruit managers who boast track records for disciplines needing stability and rigor. While costlier, specialized leaders install the best practices honed from years of experience. They bring perspective for long-term goals not always top-of-mind in rapid growth contexts. Pay premiums for top tier managers providing expertise young enterprises need but lack internally.

Formalizing Training Programs

Youthful enterprises often possess informal training primarily through shoulder-to-shoulder shadowing. While effective early on, structured onboarding and role-based education become essential as headcount and priorities multiply. Companies should design repeatable new hire orientation covering corporate history, vision, policies and systems access. Functional training ensures staffs acquire position-specific knowledge through programs like sales academies, mentor rotations and online skills development. Some firms invest in business training programs from accredited institutions like ProTrain to develop next-generation leaders. Formal training speeds productive output from new and existing employees.

Implementing Methodical Processes

During the initial phase, tasks are finished; however, daily operations lack consistency. As companies grow towards maturity, they benefit enormously from employing consistent processes for repeatable tasks. Document step-by-step procedures for previously ad hoc duties like customer onboarding, technical support, equipment calibration, reviewing financial statements and inventory audits. To retain institutional knowledge, create accessible playbooks that capture the informal expertise of experienced employees. Published procedures also ensure that employee actions support the company’s overall goals.

Automating Where Possible

Surging transaction volumes inevitably overwhelm manual methods for completing common tasks, no matter how streamlined. Explore automating repetitive activities through digital workflows to boost output while reducing costs and errors. Customer self-service portals, machine learning algorithms and robotic process automation handle high-frequency tasks faster and more accurately than their human counterparts. Chatbots resolving service inquiries or algorithms recommending products based on purchase history best deploy limited human resources on judgment-intensive analyses and decisions. Let software custodians handle the tedious, repetitive tasks, freeing up talented staff to focus on complex, high-value work that better serves customers.

Strengthening Company Culture

Rapid external growth often outpaces internal cultural maturation unless it is deliberately nurtured. Leadership should revisit core values frequently and evaluate if priorities remain unchanged from earlier stages. Reinforce cornerstone principles like transparency, innovation and customer centricity through storytelling and celebrating employees exhibiting these qualities. Seek feedback anonymously on how staff perceives existing culture and solicit recommendations for improvement from inside stakeholders. Purposeful culture management ensures expanding businesses retain founding identities.

Conclusion

Modern challenges accompany growing enterprises reaching new heights in customers, people and revenue. Thoughtful moves scaling operations, installing expertise, formalizing training, employing processes and upholding culture preserve institutional knowledge and identities throughout phases of hyper-growth. Prioritizing these foundational elements amid turbulence leads to managed, sustained expansions. While chaos may reign in the short-term, companies making smart infrastructural moves position themselves to win long-term.